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Smith Electric Vehicles Suspends Production

The commercial electric truck maker Smith Electric Vehicles has suspended production for an unspecified period of time.

The Kansas City Star reports production was suspended at the end of last year, according to documents the company filed with the U.S. Energy Department, due to tight cash flow.

The DOE awarded the company $32 million in grants during 2009 and 2010 to produce more than 500 vehicles to be placed in various fleets across the U.S., however, only 439 have reportedly been produced. The Energy Department says it is working with the company to produce the remaining vehicles.

Smith Electric Vehicles has placed its products in fleets such as Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay and Staples, among others, since arriving in Kansas City, Mo. in 2009, but has had other problems since then.

In 2012 it pulled back on plans for an initial public offering of stock and scaled back production, according to the newspaper, while plans to begin production of trucks in both New York City and Chicago never came to fruition.

Last summer, Smith announced that with 700 vehicles and 5 million miles of operation it was "transitioning into the commercial manufacturing phase."

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Comments

Well, $32 million divided by 439 comes out to around $73,000.00 per vehicle plus whatever Coke,Frito, and Staples paid for them. Another good investment by our government!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2.Smith Electric[ April 25, 2014 @ 12:20PM ]

Smith Electric Vehicles is alive and operating, even if we are not building trucks for a while.We took a strategic decision to stop money-losing production which resulted in layoffs of assembly line workers, but the plant and office in Kansas City, Mo. and the North of England remain staffed with about 140 engineering, manufacturing, sales, marketing and support people.We are working very hard in the meantime to focus on removing cost out of our supplier base with a view to re-open production in the Summer.

3.Bob pellegrino[ May 05, 2017 @ 12:30PM ]

I need lug nuts for my Smith truck are they available it's the Smith Norton

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